Yes, I Know the Monkey Man

by Dori Hillestad Butler

“It isn’t,” Grandpa Sperling murmured.

  “What are you talking about?” Grandma Sperling asked as she whirled to face Grandpa Sperling. “You never meant to hit that girl. What happened that day was a terrible accident. But Joseph meant to take Sarah. He—”

  Grandpa Sperling held up one hand. “It doesn’t matter. Do you think that poor girl’s mother cared whether it was an accident or not? She lost her child, just like Suzanne lost her child.”

  “It’s not the same,” Grandma Sperling insisted. “Joseph Wright was a—”

  “STOP!” Suzanne yelled. “I don’t want to talk about this! I don’t want to talk about what Joe did and I don’t want to talk about what Dad did. I’m getting married tomorrow. This is supposed to be a happy time for me. Can we please just be happy right now?”

  Grandma Sperling tried to smile. “Of course, dear,” she said, backing down. “You’ve been through so much.” She shot me a dirty look, like it was my fault Suzanne wasn’t happy. “Now why don’t you girls go upstairs and get ready for the rehearsal dinner?”

  Sam and I glanced at each other as we turned and headed up the stairs. But neither of us said a word. I went into the den and Sam continued down the hall to her room. Was she mad at me for bringing all that stuff up? Well, even if she was, I didn’t regret it one bit.

  I liked Grandpa Sperling. I really did. I liked that he played the tuba and I liked that he liked my dog and I even liked his lame magic tricks. But I’m sorry, what he did was worse than what Joe did. He killed someone.

  But wait a second. Suzanne and Sam and everyone else back here believed I was dead all these years, too.

  Was what Grandpa Sperling did really any worse than what Joe did?

  No. Stop. I didn’t want to think about this anymore, either. I needed to talk to Joe. I pulled Sam’s cell phone out of my front pocket, flipped it open, and punched in the number for Joe’s hospital room. My heart went thump, thump, thump while I waited for someone, anyone, to pick up the phone.

  No one did.

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t just sit here and keep calling the hospital. I had to get ready for this wedding rehearsal. I took off my tennis shoes and put on my black pants and white shirt. Uh-oh. I suddenly realized those tennis shoes were the only shoes I had. Even I knew you didn’t wear tennis shoes with dress pants. The pink shoes that Suzanne bought to go with my last-minute bridesmaid dress probably wouldn’t work, either.

  What was I going to do?

  Maybe Sam had something I could borrow? I really didn’t want to have another run-in with Suzanne or Grandma Sperling. I cracked my door open just a little bit and checked the hallway. The coast was clear, so I crept down to Sam’s room and knocked softly on her door.

  “Yeah?” she said, flinging her door open. She had changed into a black skirt and black-and-white blouse. “Hey, nice pants!”

  “Thanks,” I said, even though they were just regular old dress pants. “I forgot to pack shoes for this outfit. Do you have some I could borrow?”

  “Sure, come on in.” She grabbed my arm and pulled me into her room. “Most of my shoes are packed, but we can unpack them,” she said. She went to the stack of boxes by her window, moved the top one to the floor, then put the next one on her bed. She opened it up and I saw that the whole box was full of shoes.

  “Holy cow!” I said. “Are these all yours?”

  She smiled as she pulled out black shoe after black shoe after black shoe and lined up all the pairs on her bed. She didn’t even seem embarrassed about having so many. “Do you want to wear shoes or sandals?” she asked. She had several pairs of each.

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said.

  She grabbed a pair of sandals that had at least two-inch heels. “These are nice. And they kind of look like the ones I’m planning to wear. See?” She pointed to another pair of black sandals that lay in front of her dresser. Both pairs looked extremely uncomfortable.

  “Could I maybe wear those?” I pointed at a pair of plain black flat-soled shoes on her bed.

  “Those don’t have heels.”

  “Yeah. I know.” That was why I’d picked them.

  “Don’t you like heels?” she asked.

  “Not exactly.” Why would anyone like heels?

  She shrugged and picked up her curling iron. “You can wear them if you want.”

  “Thanks,” I said, slipping them on. They weren’t too bad for dress shoes.

  “So. Pretty intense scene down there, huh?” I said.

  “Yeah,” she said as she twirled a section of hair around the hot curling iron.

  “Are you mad at me for bringing that up about your grandpa?” I asked.

  “He’s your grandpa, too,” she said. She squeezed open her curling iron and a perfect corkscrew curl dropped to her shoulder. “And no, I’m not mad. Now everyone knows that we know and hopefully there won’t be any more secrets. There’ve been way too many of them in this family. And way too many things that people don’t want to talk about.”

  “Yeah, I—”

  “Wait!” Grandma Sperling yelled from downstairs. “Come back here, dog. Here, doggie, doggie!”

  What the—? There was only one dog in this house. I flew down the stairs to see what was going on. I found Grandma Sperling standing in the open front door still calling, “Here, doggie, doggie!”

  “Did you let Sherlock out?” I cried. I brushed past her and caught a glimpse of white disappearing behind a bush at the end of the block. “Is that my dog down there?”

  “I-I didn’t mean to—,” Grandma Sperling stammered, wringing her hands. “I just opened the door and—”

  “Why would you do that?” I yelled. But I didn’t have time to stand there. I had to get my dog.

  “Sherlock! Sherlock, come!” I screamed as I raced down the street, my eyes peeled on that row of bushes up ahead.

  It was hard to run in Sam’s dress shoes, so I kicked them off and nudged them to the edge of the sidewalk. Then I took off running again. The concrete burned the bottoms of my feet, but it was better than running in those shoes. When I got to the bushes, I searched all around, but I didn’t see my dog.

  I cupped my hands around my mouth and yelled, “Sherlock!”

  The lady who lived in the house by the bushes opened her door. She was older than Suzanne, but not as old as Grandma Sperling. She didn’t look too happy to see me standing in her front yard.

  “Did you see a white dog?” I asked her. “He was just here, under this bush.”

  The lady scowled at me. “You shouldn’t let your dog run loose.”

  “Hey, I’m not the one who let him out!” I called as I ran around behind her house. I didn’t see him, but I heard him bark.

  “Sherlock?” I called. It sounded like he had cut through the yard behind this one and was on the next street. I followed the sound of his bark, but when I got over to the other front yard, I still didn’t see him.

  I kept running and calling, “Sherlock! Where are you, boy?”

  I darted across a street, my eyes scanning both directions, and then I saw him. He was about a block and a half away, scampering across the yards.

  I rested my hands against my thighs, my chest heaving. “Stop, Sherlock!” I panted.

  He barked again, then turned and ran away. Great. He thought we were playing a game. But this wasn’t a game. He was heading for the highway.

  “SHERLOCK!” I screamed, running harder than I’d ever run in my life.

  He ran past the last house on the block. There was just a grassy hill separating him from the divided highway now. The highway we’d driven into town on. I chased him up the hill, but I couldn’t see him once he started down the other side.

  I heard a car honk and the squeal of brakes.

  “NO!!!” I was so scared I was going to find my dog splayed out all over the road, but when I got to the top of the hill … no Sherlock. And no stopped cars.

  So where was my dog now? There was a field of some sort across the highway.
Beans, I think. Was he in the bean field? I waited for a gap in traffic, then scurried across the highway. Ouch! The road was even hotter than the sidewalk.

  “Sherlock!” I called, running along the edge of the field. “Where are you, boy?” I peered down each row as I passed it.

  Finally, I caught a blur of white. I backed up and there was my dog, plowing down that row as fast as his little legs could carry him. I tore after him, mud oozing up between my toes. He saw me coming and tried to plunge through the bean plants, but they were too thick. He couldn’t get through.

  “I’ve almost got you!” I told him. I could tell he was looking for another gap between the plants. But before he could worm his whole body through, I made a grab for him. “Ha! Got you!” I cried, picking him up and squeezing him tight against my shirt.

  Uh-oh. My white shirt wasn’t so white anymore. My black pants were caked with mud. And my feet looked like … well, like I’d just run barefoot through a bean field.

  I checked my watch. It was 4:30. We were supposed to be at the church for Suzanne’s wedding rehearsal at 5:00. I wasn’t even sure how to get back to Suzanne’s from here. Even if I did manage to get back before they left, I was in no shape to go to a wedding rehearsal and fancy dinner. Well, it was Grandma Sperling’s fault for letting Sherlock out. Had she let him out on purpose? Or was it an accident? Either way, he could have been killed.

  Holding my dirty dog tight, I turned around and made my way out of the field. I didn’t dare put him down because I didn’t have his leash. I wasn’t going to give him another chance to run away. I shifted his weight in my arms so it was easier to carry him, then walked back along the dirt shoulder of the highway. I hadn’t been walking very long before I saw a familiar dark blue Honda slow and pull over on the other side of the highway.

  Suzanne.

  The driver’s window lowered and Suzanne stuck her head out. “T.J. Over here,” she called. She was alone.

  I looked both ways, then ran barefoot across the hot paved highway. “I don’t think you want us to ride in your car,” I told Suzanne. “We’re both pretty muddy.”

  “I know you are,” she said. “It’s fine. Just get in.”

  Okay. I set Sherlock on the floor of the backseat and told him to stay. Then I crawled in and tried to take up as little space as possible. “Thank you for picking us up,” I said as she pulled out onto the highway. She was supposed to be at her wedding rehearsal, after all. Not driving around looking for me.

  “I’m glad you found your dog,” Suzanne said, watching me in the rearview mirror. “I’m sorry he got out.”

  She was sorry? What about Grandma Sperling?

  “You know, your dad used to have a dog that looked a lot like your Sherlock.”

  “I know. He told me.”

  “Did he also tell you that that dog was the reason we got together?”

  My head popped up. “No.”

  “It’s true,” Suzanne said, slowing for a stoplight. “It was about a year after Joe’s sister was killed. I was walking home from school and this dog came out of nowhere. I saw your dad running down the block after him. He yelled for me to help him. So I did.”

  I tried to picture a teenaged Joe and Suzanne chasing after a dog that looked like Sherlock, but I just couldn’t see it.

  “Did you know who he was?”

  “You mean, did I know he was the boy whose sister was killed in an accident because of my dad?” she asked. The light turned green and we kept going. “Yes, I knew. I’d never actually spoken to him before, but I knew who he was. And I felt guilty every time I saw him in the halls. Like somehow what happened was my fault, even though I wasn’t even in the car.

  “But we had a really nice talk that afternoon,” Suzanne went on. “After we caught his dog, I mean. We talked for a long time and I realized we had something pretty big in common.”

  “Really?” I said. “What?” I’d known Suzanne for two days now and I couldn’t think of a single thing she and Joe had in common.

  “We both had families that were consumed with grief.”

  “That’s why you guys got together?”

  “Initially, yes,” Suzanne said. “But in the end, it’s probably what broke us up, too. That, and the fact that the shared grief was about the only thing Joe and I did have in common. You can’t build a relationship on grief.”

  No, I guess not.

  Suzanne and I didn’t talk anymore until we were back on her street. “I, um, left Sam’s shoes in the grass over there,” I said as we drove past them.

  Suzanne slowed the car and pulled over. I jumped out and got the shoes. “I can just walk the rest of the way back to your house,” I said. But Suzanne motioned for me to get back in the car, so … I did.

  “I know this is a difficult time for you, T.J.,” Suzanne said. “It’s difficult for all of us. But we’re going to find a way to make this work. You just have to give it some time, okay? Please. Give us all some time.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  As though it was really that easy.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Grandma Sperling met Suzanne and me at the front door when we walked in. I carried my muddy, wiggly dog in my arms.

  “It’s five after five,” she told Suzanne. “We were supposed to be at the church five minutes ago!”

  “I know, Mother,” Suzanne said, stepping around her. Grandpa Sperling and Sam were on the couch, all dressed up and ready to go.

  “Good heavens,” Grandma Sperling cried. “Look at you, Sar—T.J. You’re a mess.”

  I blinked. Did she just call me T.J.? “I-I had to chase Sherlock through a field,” I said as I set him down. He ran right over to Sam and she scratched him behind the ears.

  “It’s fine, Mother,” Suzanne said. “I’m going to call Bob right now. T.J. is going to go and get changed and then we’ll be on our way.”

  I am? “Uh, what do you want me to wear?” I called after her as she dashed into the kitchen. “I didn’t exactly bring any other dressy clothes.”

  “Just put on something clean,” she called back. “It doesn’t have to be dressy. And hurry up!”

  I pounded up the stairs two at a time, stopped in the bathroom long enough to wash my hands, arms, and feet, then I hurried back to the den. Sam’s cat was curled up on my bed. He meowed at me like he was telling me to hurry up.

  “I’m going as fast as I can,” I told him. It was too hot for jeans, so I grabbed a clean pair of shorts and a red shirt and threw them on. I also grabbed Sam’s cell phone in case I had a chance to call Joe later. I hustled back downstairs, my tennis shoes dangling from my fingers.

  Grandma Sperling gasped when she saw me. “You can’t go to the church dressed like that!”

  “She’s fine, Mother,” Suzanne said. “It’s just the rehearsal. Let’s go.”

  When we got to the church, Suzanne and Grandma Sperling rushed us all inside. I’d only been inside a church two or three times in my whole life but I didn’t exactly have a chance to look around. We went right into the main part of the church, where everyone was waiting.

  Bob and a bunch of other people were sitting in the first two pews on the right side. The minister stood beside them.

  “Sorry we’re late,” Suzanne said as we practically ran up the aisle. “We had a dog emergency.”

  Bob stood up and greeted Suzanne with a hug. “I was afraid you’d changed your mind about this wedding,” he said.

  Suzanne smiled. “You know better than that.”

  I recognized most of the people who were there from last night’s barbecue. Apparently Bob’s brothers and sisters were all in the wedding. But there was one lady I hadn’t met before.

  Suzanne introduced us. “T.J., I’d like you to meet my oldest friend in the world. This is Paula Wachowski, my matron of honor.”

  Paula held out her hand. “We’ve met, but you probably don’t remember.” She smiled. “I helped take care of you and your sister when you were babies. It’s so nice to se
e you again.”

  I felt weird when she said that. So nice to see you again. She made it sound like we’d just been too busy to see each other these past ten years.

  “Let’s run through the ceremony now, shall we?” the minister said. All the people who were in the wedding got up and moved toward the aisle between the pews. I was usually pretty comfortable in shorts and a T-shirt, but I felt a little funny today when everyone else was so dressed up.

  “Oh, wait,” Bob’s mother said. “You need your bouquet, Suzanne.” She reached into a bag, pulled out a paper plate with a bunch of gift bows on it and handed it to her.

  “What the heck?” I said to Sam as Suzanne took the plate and gave Bob’s mother a hug.

  “They made it at Mom’s bridal shower,” Sam told me. “The bows came from all the presents she got.”

  “Okay,” I said. “So why’d they put them all on a paper plate?”

  Sam shrugged. “It’s just something they do in that family before people get married. I don’t know. Maybe it’s supposed to bring good luck or something.”

  “How do you want everyone to line up?” the minister asked Suzanne and Bob.

  “They’ve added a bridesmaid,” Grandma Sperling said as she squeezed in next to the minister. “So I don’t know what they’re going to do about that. Somebody’s not going to have anyone to walk with.”

  “We’ve had other weddings where the number of bridesmaids and the number of groomsmen didn’t match up,” the minister said. “I remember one wedding where the groomsmen walked in with the groom and then stood at the front of the church with him while the bridesmaids walked up the aisle by themselves.”

  “That would work,” Paula said, turning to Suzanne.

  “You’re still going to have an uneven number of people standing at the front of the church,” Grandma Sperling said. “It’s going to look off balance.”

  “Hey, if it’s a problem, I don’t have to be a bridesmaid,” I said. I didn’t want to be responsible for making Suzanne’s wedding look off balance.

  “No, I should be the person who backs out,” one of Bob’s sisters said. “In fact, T.J. looks about my size. She could probably wear my bridesmaid dress if you’d rather everyone matches.”